Murder in Belleville

casual tone made her angry. But she had to play it cool or Samia would bolt.

“It’s scary,” Aimee said, staring meaningfully at her. “I mean, look what can happen.”

“Just don’t rub anyone the wrong way,” Samia said, but her lip quivered. She looked uneasy. “I called a pager number—that’s all I did.”

“When?”

“They said, ‘Call in four hours—if no answer, try in another two hours.’ Someone called back with a delivery location.”

Aimee pulled in to the taxi line. She had an idea.

“Contact Zdanine before you go.”

Samia took Aimee’s phone and called Zdanine.

Samia’s voice changed; not just the cloying, soothing line to a pimp but an earnest overtone as if convincing him. For a full two minutes she argued, her words a mix of gutter French, verlan, and Arabic.

Abruptly she snapped Aimee’s phone shut.

“What happened?” Aimee asked.

“He’ll come around,” she said.

Aimee didn’t care about Zdanine’s list of potential clients; she wanted the suppliers who’d been at the Cirque d’Hiver.

“Zdanine says it’s too dangerous, doesn’t he?”

Samia shook her head.

“What then?”

“He thinks your cut’s too big,” she said. “It should be split so he gets a nice slice. After all, he says, he’s Khalil’s cousin, and the contacts are his.”

Spoken like a true pimp, Aimee thought. If Samia translated correctly. Outside in Place Napoleon III, people emerged from Gare du Nord, opened their umbrellas, and ran to the taxi line.

“Nothing happens until I wire Khalil to front the money,” Aimee said. “How do I know your people can deliver the plastique?

“They’re not my people,” Samia said, “I told you, I don’t like them. Zdanine does the connection.”

“Until you give me the supplier’s name, I don’t cough up the front money.”

Samia shrugged. She buttoned her coat and gripped the door handle before she turned back.

“What’s the number?”

Samia opened the car door. A sheet of rain sprayed in. “Marc’s school is outside Paris, not far. I’ll be back soon.” Samia slammed the door shut and disappeared toward the train platforms in the cavernous station.

Aimee lowered her forehead onto the steering wheel. This stank. Samia had made a deal. Aimee felt it in her bones.

Here she sat at a taxi line outside Gare du Nord, the windows fogged, and no closer to Eugenie or the explosive suppliers than before.

Her gloom matched the gray sheeting rain whipping across the square. Extraordinary—she couldn’t remember when April had been this wet. It had rained incessantly all week. She took several deep breaths and thought. If those men were the explosive suppliers, why wait for Samia to get back?

She switched on the ignition and took off back down boulevard de Magenta. In record time, she parked in Cite de Crussol, on one of the passages branching from behind Cirque d’Hiver.

She punched in Morbier’s number. He answered after several rings.

“Morbier, call it intuition, but Samia’s playing me,” she said. “Your little friend got me shot!”

“Shot?”

“I pulled the shrapnel out but—”

“She’s young, Leduc,” he said. “And the young don’t know left from right.”

“No conscience, more like it,” she said.

“Bien sur,” he said. “Tell me about it.”

She explained about Cirque d’Hiver and her abrupt departure at Gare du Nord. “I didn’t like the big guys in the circus.”

“Nice groundwork and setup,” he said.

She paused, surprised at his comment. He rarely said anything complimentary. “But I’m still in the dark. Samia became helpful too quickly.”

“She’ll come through,” he said.

She wondered why he kept excusing her.

“Why do you let her off the hook so easily?”

“No questions, remember?” he said. “Marcus must be six or seven, eh?”

His comment didn’t surprise her. Morbier had an immense memory, like her father and those of his generation possessed. No computer files or central storage systems; they kept it all in their head: a mec’s street record, an unsolved murder in their arrondissement years back, whose palm oiled the important palms, a pimp’s harem, and their children’s names.

“Where are you going now?” Morbier asked.

“To church,” she said. “Zdanine might be more helpful.”

“Will he talk to you?”

“I won’t know until I try.”

Saturday Afternoon

A LIGHT DRIZZLE BEADED Aimee’s glasses. The smell of wet wool rose from the damp pavement in front of Notre-Dame de la Croix.

In the midst of the rain, the noise, and pushing bodies, she felt someone staring at her.

Aimee’s throat tightened. Had someone followed her from the circus or was she some street mec’s target?

She looked up.

Yves stared across the barricade, his navy anorak glistening with rain droplets.

His gaze pulled her in as if it were a homing signal. Caught in his magnetic field, she was powerless to resist.

And then she was next to him.

“New perfume?” he muttered, as the police pointed them toward the barricade’s end.

“Does this have to do with the way I change the air?”

“The other night you wore lemon verbena,” he said, nodding at the other reporters.

“Quite a memory you’ve got,” she said.

“You’d be amazed,” he said, “at what I remember.”

She turned away.

“Slumming or trying to meet me?”

“Working,” she said.

“You ought to charge your cell phone,” he said, flashing his press pass at the barricade. “Makes it easier for people to reach you. I’ve been trying since this morning.”

“Other people can reach me, why not you?”

Dumb. Why let him know it bothered her?

She felt his hot breath on her earlobe, and his bristly chin brushed her neck as he turned back to a policeman. He smelled the same. The dusky Yves scent.

She had no time for someone who popped in and out of her life when it suited him. Most of all she didn’t want these feelings; couldn’t deal with them at the best of times.

But he could help her.

“Look, I need to get into the church,” she said. “Say I’m with you, just for now.”